


The Best Friend

by rsadelle



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-23
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 20:38:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rsadelle/pseuds/rsadelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Are you the best friend? Because Marshy said I was dumb and you were the best friend and I should get my shit together."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Trope meme ficlet for isilya for the prompt "Seguin genderswap." I decided to call girl!Segs Taylor instead of leaving her as Tyler.

Taylor gets dumped while they're on a road trip. By text. The night before they have a day off that she was going to use to strip for him over Skype.

Marshy and Looch and Ference buy her drinks, enough that she's pretty drunk and ranting and glad they're in the hotel bar instead of somewhere it'll take longer to get back to her room from, and it all sucks. _Sucks._

"And I can't even have ice cream," she whines. (She know she's whining, and she doesn't care, because she got dumped and it sucks.) "The trainers would kill me if I got it myself, and Tyler would order it for me and just have it sent to my room, but they have a game and he doesn't even know yet, and why does this always happen?"

And, okay, she knows she's been going on about this for a while, but it's totally not long enough for Marshy to get mad at her and say, "Jesus, Segs, how dumb are you?"

"What?"

"You know all those stupid movies you make me watch where the girl's really in love with her best friend the whole time?"

"I thought you liked those movies!"

"So not the point, Taylor! You're that girl. You only date assholes when you have a best friend who _calls you his wife_ and buys you ice cream when you're sad. Get your shit together!"

Taylor gets up and leaves before her eyes can do more than prickle with tears, because she just got dumped and her friends aren't supposed to be yelling at her now.

Ference catches up with her just before the elevators, and he takes her elbow and lets her brace herself against him when the elevator lurches its way upwards and doesn't make fun of her when she sniffles because he can be just as much of an asshole as the rest of them but not when she just got dumped.

He asks, "You gonna be okay, little girl?" when they get to her door and he has to swipe her keycard for her.

Taylor doesn't even bother trying to smile at him. "Yeah," she says, "I'm just going to go cry myself to sleep like the dumb girl I am."

Ference squeezes her arm, but doesn't try to stay, so she lets the door fall shut behind him and throws herself onto the bed. She can see the clock on the nightstand from there, and it's late. Late enough that Tyler's probably done with his game.

Taylor digs her phone out of her pocket and calls him.

"We just got in," he says when he picks up. "You have either really good or really shitty timing."

Taylor manages a little bit of a laugh. "Did you win?"

"Yep. Three-two. I had an assist."

"Sweet."

"Yeah, it was a good game. What's up? You sound weird."

Taylor squeezes her eyes shut against a sudden rush of tears. "I got dumped," she says, and then she's crying and pouring out the whole story, right up to, "And then Marshy yelled at me, and I don't even get to have ice cream," and then she's just drunk and crying and alone in a hotel room with her best friend on the other end of the phone.

"Oh, honey," Tyler says, and it feels like a hug, almost, as close as she can get over the phone anyway, and Taylor just cries harder and Tyler stays on the phone until she falls asleep without even getting under the covers.

*

Taylor makes it out of bed for the day off team bonding tourist experience thing in the morning, although she skips breakfast in favor of just a cup of coffee and she stays away from Marshy and sidles up to Ference instead.

"How are you feeling this morning?" he asks.

"Hungover as shit." Taylor pushes her sunglasses a little more firmly onto her nose, trying to dim as much light as possible.

Ference slings an arm around her shoulders. "Little girl, you have got to learn to hold your liquor."

Taylor elbows him, but not hard enough to make him move away. "Fuck you."

He ruffles her hair - she glares and tries to smooth it back into place - and grins at her.

*

The doorman hands her a package when she gets home two days later, and she manages not to drop it on the way into her apartment. There's an envelope on top, so she opens that first and pulls out a flat card with a note in the strong, dark strokes of Tyler's handwriting.

> Don't eat them all at once.
> 
> No matter how many assholes dump you, you'll always be my wife.
> 
> XOXO  
>  Tyler

Taylor tears open the paper around the box. He sent her chocolates, only a small box, but the really good kind. She eats one of them standing there at the kitchen counter, and then she snaps a picture of the box with that one empty space and sends it to him with, _Thanks. You're the best. xoxo_

*

Marshy shows up at her door after practice the next day, and she lets him in even though she spends a minute thinking about ignoring him.

"Looch threatened to throw me into the boards if I didn't apologize," he says. "I don't know why he didn't threaten the douchebag who dumped you by text, but I am sorry. Yelling at you was a dick move."

Taylor says, "Because he can make it look like an accident if he hits you," and makes Marshy pay for lunch. She's pretty sure he sees the note from Tyler still sitting on her counter, but he doesn't say anything about it and he doesn't try to eat her chocolates.

*

Being Taylor Seguin in Boston has its advantages. She can get served pretty much anywhere, even though she's underage, strangers on the street thank her, and she can pretty much get laid whenever she wants, but somehow she always forgets the part of all of that where it doesn't magically make everything easy.

Like now. She got dumped three weeks ago, had a couple of rebound fucks two weeks ago, and now has to get herself a cab because Marshy abandoned her to go home with some girl he picked up at the last bar. Getting a cab isn't the hard part, and thank God everyone just takes cards because she can still swipe her card while she's drunk.

The hard part is that there's no one for her to lean on in the elevator up to her place, or to open the door when she fumbles with the key, or to take her phone away when she decides to call Tyler even though it's so late it's early and he's probably asleep.

He picks up, at least, and says, "What the hell? Do you know what fucking time it is? This better be good, Taylor."

"Are you the best friend? Because Marshy said I was dumb and you were the best friend and I should get my shit together."

Tyler groans. "It's two o'clock in the morning, and I have no fucking idea what you're talking about."

"You bought me chocolates," Taylor says. "And you buy me ice cream and call me your wife and you _are_ my best friend but are you that kind of best friend?"

"I still don't know what you're talking about."

"Are we supposed to get together at the end of the movie?"

There's a silence that goes on for too long, and then Tyler says, "You're drunk," and his voice is all flat and weird. "Take some aspirin, drink some water, and go to bed." And then he hangs up on her.

Taylor swallows down whatever it is she's feeling (Disappointment? Hurt? He never hangs up on her.) and does what he told her to because he's probably right about that.

*

The really shitty thing is that she wakes up hungover, but she wasn't so drunk that she doesn't remember calling Tyler, so she also has to wake up remembering that he hung up on her.

Taylor mopes around the house, goes to practice and puts up with the guys making fun of her hangover, and doesn't really start feeling better until after she takes a nap. She lies in bed for a while after she wakes up, thinking about it. Tyler is her best friend, he's hot enough that she would totally hit that, and she knows they can live together. She tries it out in her head, thinking about dating him and fucking him and living with him and marrying him so she would really be his wife. It's really good, like she could do that.

But he hung up on her, and if this really is her romcom ending, that probably means she has to do something that will get him back and/or show him she's serious. But that's never what happens. In all the movies (and they're not _stupid_ , no matter what Marshy says), it's always the guy who makes the big gesture at the end. And they're hundreds of miles apart anyway.

Taylor can't quite believe she's doing this, but she thumbs her phone on and calls Marshy. He's probably the worst person to call for advice, but he brought it up in the first place and Jesse would just turn around and tell Tyler about it, so Marshy it is.

"You were right," she tells him when he picks up the phone. "He's totally the best friend. But he hung up on me, so I don't think he's going to make the whole romantic gesture, so I have to, but I don't know what because we're not even in the same state. What would work on you?"

"Naked pictures," Marshy says, "but I've actually dumped a girl by text so I think I'm the asshole, not the best friend." There's a pause, and then he says, "Oh, God, I'm the other best friend. The girl who gives advice, not the guy you're in love with."

Taylor dissolves into laughter, because he totally is.

"Laugh all you want," Marshy says, "but I'm not going shopping with you. I don't even want to be talking about this with you."

Taylor stops laughing and sighs. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Day off on Sunday. Get in your car on Sunday morning and drive up there. You can be back for practice on Monday."

"Oh," Taylor says, "that might work." She opens her laptop and pulls up the Phantoms' schedule. "They have a game on Sunday, but they're at home."

"Great," Marshy says. "Go watch him play, and then take off your shirt."

Taylor snorts. "I don't think that'll work, but at least I'll be there."

*

Taylor doesn't really come up with a plan, so on Sunday morning all she has to take with her is an overnight bag and the pair of skates and stick she throws in the trunk just in case. She does snap a picture of the note that came with the chocolates, where she's moved it from her counter to the fridge, just in case that's helpful.

Of course, she doesn't tell Tyler she's coming, so he's not home when she gets there. She sits on the steps and sends texts to a couple of friends, has a whole conversation with her sisters about how Lady Gaga is way more awesome than Katy Perry, and gets three hideous pictures of Marshy's dog and two adorable ones of Ference's kids.

"Segs?"

Taylor looks up, and then grins and puts her phone away and goes down the steps to Tyler.

"What are you doing here?" Tyler asks, even as he pulls her into a hug that's pretty much the best thing she's ever felt. And, oh, Marshy was right; she is dumb.

Taylor shrugs, trying to play it cool, even though her heart is pounding and she wants to kiss him. "I came to see you."

Tyler backs off a little, and Taylor's not cool enough not to grab at his sleeve.

"Marshy was right," she says. "I am dumb and you are the best friend and I do love you and, oh, shit, you have to play in a couple of hours and I probably shouldn't have said that until after your game."

"All right," Tyler says, "let's not talk about this on the street." He lets her into his apartment, and then says, "You just got dumped."

"It's been almost a month! And he was an asshole anyway."

Tyler half smiles at her. "You always date assholes."

"You're not an asshole."

"No," Tyler says, but then he crowds her against the wall, and she never notices that he's just a little taller than her unless they're really close together.

"Oh," Taylor breathes, and she smiles up at him. "I still have your note, from the chocolates, and I want to always be your wife." She puts her arms around him, and he doesn't stop her. "And I really want you to fuck me because that's the only part of this we haven't done yet." She kisses him before he stops laughing, and he kisses back, and it's both the sweetest thing she's ever tasted and the second-best moment of her life (because nothing can ever top winning the Cup).

"Hey," Tyler says, and he nudges her hip, "is this where the credits are supposed to roll?"

Taylor laughs, can't help herself, joy bubbling out of her. "I think it's supposed to be the wedding, but here is good." She smiles up at him, watching him smile down at her. "This is a happy ending."


End file.
